It has been important in the last decade in the television processing and broadcasting of professional golfing events to enhance and highlight the parameters representing the various multiple and complex surfaces of the greens on the course being played by professionals in a specific tournament, such as the ProAm in Pebble Beach, Calif., the Doral in Miami, Fla., the Masters in Augusta, Ga., and many others including the many major tournaments played in the Chicago area at Cog Hill Country Club, Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Ill., and Oakbrook Country Club in Oakbrook, Ill.
There have been many video systems to visualize the path of the ball on the putting green to the hole, both for the golfer and the viewer of the video of the stroke and path of the putt. These basically have fallen into equations that calculate at least some of the length of the putt, the topography between the ball position on the green and the hole, the mass of the ball, the mass of the putter, the input velocity of the putter, the ball exit velocity from the putter face, and the speed of the green measured by a stint meter, wind velocity in the green area.
With all this information, it is possible, and has been done to some extent, to synthesize and display the path of a properly struck holed ball between almost any place on the green and the hole both before and during the actual striking of a putt in almost real time. This technology has achieved some modicum of success in golf including Fox Network.
However, the popularity of this technology has been waning in recent years (2010-2011) because of its complexity, real time delay, camera location identification, and other factors.
The Ewing Golf Association, U.S. Pat. No. 6,774,932, exemplifies this complex technology and it has achieved some commercial success with U.S. national television broadcasting, particularly with Fox Networks, but this system has drawbacks that have diminished its attractiveness both at present and possibly in the future—although its prestrike putting path graphics have been impressive in some cases.
The Ewing system involves the processing of green contour information with the position of the player's ball and calculating, using the above parameters, the synthesized path of the ball to the hole. This is an effective television viewer analysis tool.
However, the Ewing process is complex and has significant drawbacks that have diminished the use of the Ewing systems in U.S. golf broadcasting process.
Firstly, the Ewing system requires three cameras, and such cameras may also be used in the present invention: those are a Blimp camera, a tower camera at each green or at least the green under consideration, and a hand-held camera that is mobile around the green as real time play and putting or chipping on the green proceeds. The Ewing system requires that the spatial position of the cameras (as well as the pan, yaw, and tilt) be calculated. Those parameters are not difficult for the tower camera which is fixed except for movement of the tower camera relative to the tower camera base which is easily calculated. However, those parameters are difficult for the Blimp camera and the mobile camera because they are constantly moving.
It is not practically possible to spatially locate the Blimp camera or the mobile walking camera because laser tracking requires extensive equipment and a high labor content, and GPS tracking does not have the accuracy to delineate the 0.010 inch differentials in the slope of a green to optimize this technology and the slope of the green or path of the ball. Thus, the Ewing technology is not practical for either the Blimp camera image production, or the hand-held mobile camera.
Another problem with the Ewing system is that it requires a delay in television transmission to viewers as its high power microprocessor makes the putt path generation calculation. This can take one or more seconds. Television broadcasting in real time cannot easily handle even this small delay because it creates multiple confusions and complications down the transmission line network to the local transmitters and the ultimate local network viewers.
Another problem in this existing system is the spatial location of a combination of at least 2 or 3 cameras, depending on the technology, to determine multiple ball positions topographically and hole position differentials. The identification of the three camera positions with xyz coordinates, and the pan, tilt, and yaw of each camera are extremely complex inputs to this prior system.
The calculated ball trajectory of the prior system is also complex and time consuming in real time display.
Also, the Ewing system depends upon a single Stimp speed reading, which is only a single number for each or sometimes multiple greens. Moreover, stimp meter speed readings not only vary from one green to another on a given course at a given time on a given green, but also vary from one location on a green to another, varied by such variables a grain direction, for example.
It would be desirable to eliminate many of the disadvantages of the Ewing system and make it more palatable to commercial golf television broadcasting. These include eliminating the complete putting path display that causes the broadcast delay and the subsequent confusion. The second is eliminating the identification and data relating to camera location, ball on the green location, and other parameter calculations.
Others objects and advantages will appear more clearly from the following detailed description of the invention.